NosferatuBill36
Super Freak
I'm almost certain there will be a limited edition. And Bethesda always does a great job with them.
*Still has his Oblivion LE*
Elder Scrolls V Skyrim
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I'm almost certain there will be a limited edition. And Bethesda always does a great job with them.
*Still has his Oblivion LE*
Spartan Rex
Super Freak
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AusGamers was given special access to the main squeeze at Bethesda Game Studios, Mr Todd Howard, to talk all things The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Read on for what he has to say about dragons, the mod community, PC and consoles, as well as not locking you out of the game when it ends...
AusGamers: Ladies and gents welcome back to AusGamers. You’re here with Stephen Farrelly and I have a very special guest with me today - Mr Todd Howard from Bethesda Game Studios; thanks to the fine folk at Bethesda for organising this for us.
Todd, obviously [Skyrim is the] buzz of the show -- I saw it in Utah [prior Bethesda event]. Two dragons at the end this time? Was that put in this demo specifically or was that a procedural thing? Because you were talking about that in Utah.
Todd Howard: We did... for this demo we have scripted their arrivals to make sure that we’re getting dragons on the screen and after that they do their own thing. So we did want to show another type of dragon -- the frost dragon -- so we set it up where once you killed one, the other one would come in (sometimes they overlap a little bit). But we wanted to show that because there are a lot of new Shout powers we wanted to show here at E3 -- absorbing the soul and doing all that.
AusGamers: Is there only those two dragon archetypes?
Todd: No, there are more. We’re not talking about that yet, but there are other ones. I don’t want to say the exact number -- we’re still messing with it. There aren’t a lot, but there are more.
AusGamers: Now let’s step it back a bit, I want to talk a bit about Creation Engine. You guys have been demoing the game on Xbox 360, is there any particular reason why you haven’t shown the PC version? Because clearly that would be the higher end.
Todd: Yeah it does, obviously the PC version looks better. It has higher textures, it can run much higher resolution and a lot more graphic features. We tend to show it on 360 so that it’s a good baseline for people to look at. So when they then see the PC version it’s going to go up. We’d rather do that than have people see the 360 later and it takes a step down.
We’re really excited with how it looks on the 360 and the PS3. So we do author the art the same for all the platforms, it’s just that they render it differently. Also for things like this [tradeshows] -- I don’t know if people realise -- but as a game developer, the 360 is just much easier to show it on, from getting it started, to showing it, to controlling it, it’s just much easier to demo on logistically.
AusGamers: Okay, now going from Gamebryo to Creation, what was the outset goal for you guys, in terms of the features that you wanted and the stuff that you didn’t want anymore -- the kind of hang-ups that you had. What was the process going forward?
Todd: Well we came off of Fallout 3 and we’re always moving our own technology forward. Whether that’s using a piece of middleware or doing AI or things like that. We had a pretty big list of what we felt the 360, the PS3 and the high-end PCs could do, and it wasn’t like we said “we’re going to re-write the engine”; we just sort of started with “okay, let’s do this to the graphics; let’s do this to the gameplay”.
We started hitting that hard right after Fallout 3, so I’d say after the course of the next year and a half it turns out we’d re-written all of this -- look how it looks; we’re not using this anymore; we’re not using that anymore. So that’s when we actually decided to brand it; we should call it something of our own.
But it wasn’t from the get go “we’re going to re-write the whole engine”. It was a priority list and we ended up re-writing more than we thought we were gonna, but it worked out.
AusGamers: You always support the mod community as well and I know that this is going to have mod tools out of the box.
Todd: For download, not in the box.
AusGamers: Right okay, yeah.
Todd: In case people look in their box and they’re like “what?”.
AusGamers: Obviously the PC community really enjoys that a lot, but have you thought about giving that level of access to the consoles?
Todd: I have yeah. I think our PC mod community is one of the things that is great about our games. We’ve always supported it and we want to continue to do it. But a lot of our audience is on the consoles so they’re not experiencing that. So we have talked to Microsoft and Sony; “how do we do this?”.
The good news is that those things have started to happen with games like Forza 3 and sharing all your car stuff or Rock Band’s a really good example, where you can make your own tracks where you’re authoring them somewhere else then you’re uploading them to the 360.
There are still a lot of issues to solve with... because these aren’t instances like a song or a car you know, you could download a mod that destroys your game and we can’t have that. So we’re still... we have not solved -- even on paper yet -- how to handle security; how do we handle not messing up your saved games and things like that.
So it’s not going to be solved for the game’s release, but it’s something that we’re going to continue to look at because we think that it’s an awesome part of the game that the majority of our audience isn’t seeing.
AusGamers: Is there any opportunity going forward to actually take some of the PC mod stuff and port that to console for console players?
Todd: It actually works. If you have a devkit console you can take the PC mod files, put them on your Xbox and they work. They actually worked in Oblivion, Morrowind and Fallout 3. For all of those games, I can take the PC mods and put them on my Xbox. We have one system so we just need to figure out the logistics of: How do we get it there? How do we secure it? How do we make it safe? It’s something that we would really like to do.
AusGamers: Well that’s tantalising and pretty cool for the console players out there.
Todd: Yeah, it’d be awesome. Here’s this awesome thing and we’re not doing it right now. What do you think of that answer? [laughs]
AusGamers: Sticking with the mod community for a quick second. Is there anything that you guys added to Skyrim that was taken from Oblivion mods or even Fallout 3 mods that just seemed to work that you guys maybe hadn’t thought of before?
Todd: There’s a bunch, in terms of... it’s nice when they’re creating so many things and then they’re voting so you can see what’s popular. We do look at a lot of the popular ones to see how they change the game balance because that’s fairly easy to do. Sometimes they’re adding dungeons and adventures, so we take less from that, it’s more about how do they change health/damage ratios or this, that and the other.
One of the ones we liked early on in Oblivion is someone made a mod that made the bows a lot more powerful but you couldn’t shoot them as fast. So they just felt better and you felt more powerful instead of shooting over and over. So that was one of the things where “oh, we need to do that in Skyrim; it needs to work like this”. So the bows... the one we show is a lower-end bow -- you can pull them back faster -- but the higher-end bows, they take longer to pull back and when you shoot they do a tonne of damage.
AusGamers: Okay, that’s cool. Now as far as the gameplay goes, the Radiant Story system sounds amazing but it’s a little bit hard for some people to wrap their heads around.
Todd: Yeah, it’s hard to explain. The best way to explain it is, it’s the tool that our designers use to make quests. When they make a quest, they can make something specific. Like “this guy” is going to give you “this quest”. So every part of the quest, we call them “roles”, the people in it; the places; the items; those are all roles that the designer can fill out, either specifically or then conditionalised. So instead of “this guy” you can say “I want a guy in town who likes you a lot”, or “I want dark elf in town who hates you” or “I want a dark elf tavern owner who doesn’t know you”.
You can conditionalise all of those roles and you can look at what the player has done. So you can say... a good example is: I can give you this quest, and usually it takes place at this other dungeon -- to get this item. Well I am -- through the quest -- going to change the role of that dungeon; conditionalise it for... you haven’t fought high-level undead in a while, “Is there a dungeon nearby that has high-level undead?”; I’m going to put the item there and the guy [quest-giver] says, instead of pointing you to that dungeon, he points you to that this dungeon. Those kinds of things, if that makes sense.
But even for us, it was hard to wrap our heads around. We just built the system then we messed with how we were going to use it. Now it’s honestly a kind of light touch in the game. We don’t want people to notice it.
AusGamers: Is there a reason that you felt compelled to guide players to areas that they hadn’t been to or anything like that? Is it just so that they can see all of the assets that you’ve put into it?
Todd: Well, we want to try make things more interesting, but we were inspired by... in Fallout 3 we wrote this big script that would generate random encounters. So when you walked down roads, sometimes you would get encounters and we conditionalised the script for what you had done. And we were just inspired by that in terms of what we should do.
AusGamers So like the Talon company, if you’d killed enough of them and they are going to come after you a bit more?
Todd: Things like that or once you hit The Enclave now Vertibirds are landing. There are a couple of other examples based on quests you had finished where things would happen. So we really liked the end result of that and wanted to systemise it for the game [Skyrim].
AusGamers: Now you’re also concentrating on the northern area of Tamriel and obviously the Nord race is really tied into this and that’s the guy that you’ve been showing off. What’s the thought process for players that don’t ever play as the human characters and don’t care about that lineage for that particular race? What are you doing to invite them to becoming Dragonborn as well and does the game-world react to different races based on them being Dragonborn?
Todd: Well no matter what race you pick, you are Dragonborn. We’re kind of showing this guy because he’s very on-the-nose for the tone of the game so that people can understand it easily. But you can be any of the races; you can be an Argonian lizard who is Dragonborn and sorry I forgot the other part of the question... oh how do they react? It’s mostly a flavour thing. There’s a little bit of, this is a little bit harder, you can’t do this with a race but only a little bit -- it’s more dialogue flavour than anything.
Then you do have different powers based on which race you pick. So your skills start out differently, then each of the different races has their own powers, like some cool special abilities.
AusGamers: Now you didn’t touch on the guilds much out at Utah, but during the presentation here there was a bit of talk about it. Is there a specific number of guilds? Can people expect what they’ve had in the past in other Elder Scrolls games?
Todd: Well the three that we’re talking about and the three that we’re focused on are the companions for the warriors, the Thieves Guild and we’re using the College of Winterhold for mages because those are the three main archetypes that we want to pay off on. There is other stuff in the game. I don’t know if or when we’re going to talk about that honestly, but there are other groups in the game but they’re not as big as those factions.
AusGamers: Now last question -- and this is kind of a weird convoluted one. So I know you can’t talk about DLC but based on what’s come before it’s definitely going to happen.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas are really good examples of this: at the end of the game, if you’d finished it and you bought DLC... sorry, when you had finished the game before the DLC came out, you couldn’t just go back and continue to explore. Are you guys going to lock the player out when they complete this game?
Todd: No. No, that was a mistake, yeah. We were really confident about that, then the game came out and we heard pretty loud and clear that was not what they wanted. So we’re not gonna do that again. No, you’ll definitely be able to.. when you finish the main quest you can just keep playing.
And you mentioned DLC. We would like to do DLC; we don’t have any specific plans yet, but they’ve been really successful and we like making them. So right now I can say that we’d like to do less DLC but bigger ones -- you know, more substantial. The Fallout 3 pace that we did was very chaotic. We did a lot of them -- we had two overlapping groups -- and we don’t know what we’re going to make yet, but we’d like them to be closer to an expansion pack feel.
AusGamers: One last super-quick thing -- I mentioned this in Utah, but I’m just going to remind you. When you kill a person in their house, you should be able to...
Todd: Sleep in their bed, I remember you asking that. It’s on the list, I remember that. It’s not done yet, but it won’t be a DLC. We’re gonna do it.
AusGamers: Just put that on the record as well [laughs]. Alright, thanks so much for that Todd, the game looks fantastic.
Todd: It’s good seeing you again, thanks for coming out.
AusGamers: You too. Cheers.
AusGamers: Ladies and gents welcome back to AusGamers. You’re here with Stephen Farrelly and I have a very special guest with me today - Mr Todd Howard from Bethesda Game Studios; thanks to the fine folk at Bethesda for organising this for us.
Todd, obviously [Skyrim is the] buzz of the show -- I saw it in Utah [prior Bethesda event]. Two dragons at the end this time? Was that put in this demo specifically or was that a procedural thing? Because you were talking about that in Utah.
Todd Howard: We did... for this demo we have scripted their arrivals to make sure that we’re getting dragons on the screen and after that they do their own thing. So we did want to show another type of dragon -- the frost dragon -- so we set it up where once you killed one, the other one would come in (sometimes they overlap a little bit). But we wanted to show that because there are a lot of new Shout powers we wanted to show here at E3 -- absorbing the soul and doing all that.
AusGamers: Is there only those two dragon archetypes?
Todd: No, there are more. We’re not talking about that yet, but there are other ones. I don’t want to say the exact number -- we’re still messing with it. There aren’t a lot, but there are more.
AusGamers: Now let’s step it back a bit, I want to talk a bit about Creation Engine. You guys have been demoing the game on Xbox 360, is there any particular reason why you haven’t shown the PC version? Because clearly that would be the higher end.
Todd: Yeah it does, obviously the PC version looks better. It has higher textures, it can run much higher resolution and a lot more graphic features. We tend to show it on 360 so that it’s a good baseline for people to look at. So when they then see the PC version it’s going to go up. We’d rather do that than have people see the 360 later and it takes a step down.
We’re really excited with how it looks on the 360 and the PS3. So we do author the art the same for all the platforms, it’s just that they render it differently. Also for things like this [tradeshows] -- I don’t know if people realise -- but as a game developer, the 360 is just much easier to show it on, from getting it started, to showing it, to controlling it, it’s just much easier to demo on logistically.
AusGamers: Okay, now going from Gamebryo to Creation, what was the outset goal for you guys, in terms of the features that you wanted and the stuff that you didn’t want anymore -- the kind of hang-ups that you had. What was the process going forward?
Todd: Well we came off of Fallout 3 and we’re always moving our own technology forward. Whether that’s using a piece of middleware or doing AI or things like that. We had a pretty big list of what we felt the 360, the PS3 and the high-end PCs could do, and it wasn’t like we said “we’re going to re-write the engine”; we just sort of started with “okay, let’s do this to the graphics; let’s do this to the gameplay”.
We started hitting that hard right after Fallout 3, so I’d say after the course of the next year and a half it turns out we’d re-written all of this -- look how it looks; we’re not using this anymore; we’re not using that anymore. So that’s when we actually decided to brand it; we should call it something of our own.
But it wasn’t from the get go “we’re going to re-write the whole engine”. It was a priority list and we ended up re-writing more than we thought we were gonna, but it worked out.
AusGamers: You always support the mod community as well and I know that this is going to have mod tools out of the box.
Todd: For download, not in the box.
AusGamers: Right okay, yeah.
Todd: In case people look in their box and they’re like “what?”.
AusGamers: Obviously the PC community really enjoys that a lot, but have you thought about giving that level of access to the consoles?
Todd: I have yeah. I think our PC mod community is one of the things that is great about our games. We’ve always supported it and we want to continue to do it. But a lot of our audience is on the consoles so they’re not experiencing that. So we have talked to Microsoft and Sony; “how do we do this?”.
The good news is that those things have started to happen with games like Forza 3 and sharing all your car stuff or Rock Band’s a really good example, where you can make your own tracks where you’re authoring them somewhere else then you’re uploading them to the 360.
There are still a lot of issues to solve with... because these aren’t instances like a song or a car you know, you could download a mod that destroys your game and we can’t have that. So we’re still... we have not solved -- even on paper yet -- how to handle security; how do we handle not messing up your saved games and things like that.
So it’s not going to be solved for the game’s release, but it’s something that we’re going to continue to look at because we think that it’s an awesome part of the game that the majority of our audience isn’t seeing.
AusGamers: Is there any opportunity going forward to actually take some of the PC mod stuff and port that to console for console players?
Todd: It actually works. If you have a devkit console you can take the PC mod files, put them on your Xbox and they work. They actually worked in Oblivion, Morrowind and Fallout 3. For all of those games, I can take the PC mods and put them on my Xbox. We have one system so we just need to figure out the logistics of: How do we get it there? How do we secure it? How do we make it safe? It’s something that we would really like to do.
AusGamers: Well that’s tantalising and pretty cool for the console players out there.
Todd: Yeah, it’d be awesome. Here’s this awesome thing and we’re not doing it right now. What do you think of that answer? [laughs]
AusGamers: Sticking with the mod community for a quick second. Is there anything that you guys added to Skyrim that was taken from Oblivion mods or even Fallout 3 mods that just seemed to work that you guys maybe hadn’t thought of before?
Todd: There’s a bunch, in terms of... it’s nice when they’re creating so many things and then they’re voting so you can see what’s popular. We do look at a lot of the popular ones to see how they change the game balance because that’s fairly easy to do. Sometimes they’re adding dungeons and adventures, so we take less from that, it’s more about how do they change health/damage ratios or this, that and the other.
One of the ones we liked early on in Oblivion is someone made a mod that made the bows a lot more powerful but you couldn’t shoot them as fast. So they just felt better and you felt more powerful instead of shooting over and over. So that was one of the things where “oh, we need to do that in Skyrim; it needs to work like this”. So the bows... the one we show is a lower-end bow -- you can pull them back faster -- but the higher-end bows, they take longer to pull back and when you shoot they do a tonne of damage.
AusGamers: Okay, that’s cool. Now as far as the gameplay goes, the Radiant Story system sounds amazing but it’s a little bit hard for some people to wrap their heads around.
Todd: Yeah, it’s hard to explain. The best way to explain it is, it’s the tool that our designers use to make quests. When they make a quest, they can make something specific. Like “this guy” is going to give you “this quest”. So every part of the quest, we call them “roles”, the people in it; the places; the items; those are all roles that the designer can fill out, either specifically or then conditionalised. So instead of “this guy” you can say “I want a guy in town who likes you a lot”, or “I want dark elf in town who hates you” or “I want a dark elf tavern owner who doesn’t know you”.
You can conditionalise all of those roles and you can look at what the player has done. So you can say... a good example is: I can give you this quest, and usually it takes place at this other dungeon -- to get this item. Well I am -- through the quest -- going to change the role of that dungeon; conditionalise it for... you haven’t fought high-level undead in a while, “Is there a dungeon nearby that has high-level undead?”; I’m going to put the item there and the guy [quest-giver] says, instead of pointing you to that dungeon, he points you to that this dungeon. Those kinds of things, if that makes sense.
But even for us, it was hard to wrap our heads around. We just built the system then we messed with how we were going to use it. Now it’s honestly a kind of light touch in the game. We don’t want people to notice it.
AusGamers: Is there a reason that you felt compelled to guide players to areas that they hadn’t been to or anything like that? Is it just so that they can see all of the assets that you’ve put into it?
Todd: Well, we want to try make things more interesting, but we were inspired by... in Fallout 3 we wrote this big script that would generate random encounters. So when you walked down roads, sometimes you would get encounters and we conditionalised the script for what you had done. And we were just inspired by that in terms of what we should do.
AusGamers So like the Talon company, if you’d killed enough of them and they are going to come after you a bit more?
Todd: Things like that or once you hit The Enclave now Vertibirds are landing. There are a couple of other examples based on quests you had finished where things would happen. So we really liked the end result of that and wanted to systemise it for the game [Skyrim].
AusGamers: Now you’re also concentrating on the northern area of Tamriel and obviously the Nord race is really tied into this and that’s the guy that you’ve been showing off. What’s the thought process for players that don’t ever play as the human characters and don’t care about that lineage for that particular race? What are you doing to invite them to becoming Dragonborn as well and does the game-world react to different races based on them being Dragonborn?
Todd: Well no matter what race you pick, you are Dragonborn. We’re kind of showing this guy because he’s very on-the-nose for the tone of the game so that people can understand it easily. But you can be any of the races; you can be an Argonian lizard who is Dragonborn and sorry I forgot the other part of the question... oh how do they react? It’s mostly a flavour thing. There’s a little bit of, this is a little bit harder, you can’t do this with a race but only a little bit -- it’s more dialogue flavour than anything.
Then you do have different powers based on which race you pick. So your skills start out differently, then each of the different races has their own powers, like some cool special abilities.
AusGamers: Now you didn’t touch on the guilds much out at Utah, but during the presentation here there was a bit of talk about it. Is there a specific number of guilds? Can people expect what they’ve had in the past in other Elder Scrolls games?
Todd: Well the three that we’re talking about and the three that we’re focused on are the companions for the warriors, the Thieves Guild and we’re using the College of Winterhold for mages because those are the three main archetypes that we want to pay off on. There is other stuff in the game. I don’t know if or when we’re going to talk about that honestly, but there are other groups in the game but they’re not as big as those factions.
AusGamers: Now last question -- and this is kind of a weird convoluted one. So I know you can’t talk about DLC but based on what’s come before it’s definitely going to happen.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas are really good examples of this: at the end of the game, if you’d finished it and you bought DLC... sorry, when you had finished the game before the DLC came out, you couldn’t just go back and continue to explore. Are you guys going to lock the player out when they complete this game?
Todd: No. No, that was a mistake, yeah. We were really confident about that, then the game came out and we heard pretty loud and clear that was not what they wanted. So we’re not gonna do that again. No, you’ll definitely be able to.. when you finish the main quest you can just keep playing.
And you mentioned DLC. We would like to do DLC; we don’t have any specific plans yet, but they’ve been really successful and we like making them. So right now I can say that we’d like to do less DLC but bigger ones -- you know, more substantial. The Fallout 3 pace that we did was very chaotic. We did a lot of them -- we had two overlapping groups -- and we don’t know what we’re going to make yet, but we’d like them to be closer to an expansion pack feel.
AusGamers: One last super-quick thing -- I mentioned this in Utah, but I’m just going to remind you. When you kill a person in their house, you should be able to...
Todd: Sleep in their bed, I remember you asking that. It’s on the list, I remember that. It’s not done yet, but it won’t be a DLC. We’re gonna do it.
AusGamers: Just put that on the record as well [laughs]. Alright, thanks so much for that Todd, the game looks fantastic.
Todd: It’s good seeing you again, thanks for coming out.
AusGamers: You too. Cheers.
blue_rogue
Super Freak
I'm definitely getting Skyrim and I was wondering if I should play Oblivion first. The 5th Anniversary Edition is out in a few weeks for $30...
Spartan Rex
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speedy485
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Oblivion was a _____ ton of fun! Can't go wrong with it!
ToastedFred
Super Freak
I'm in a bit of a picke here. I absolutely cannot wait for this game. I'm not gonna place a pre-order until they've announced some form of Collectors/Limited Edition myself, but I'm really not sure what console to get it on.
I tend to get single player games on the PS3 since most of my friends use Xbox for online, but I'm afraid that any of the DLC that will be relased is going to be Xbox exclusive for a long time (much like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas).
So then that leads me to wanting to get it on the Xbox, but in my opinion the graphics will be better on PS3, which will make gameplay more fun and immersive. Though to be honest, the graphics could probably be the same as Oblivion and it would still be incredibly immersive and fun.
So yeah....anyone else struggling to pick a console of choice for this game?
I tend to get single player games on the PS3 since most of my friends use Xbox for online, but I'm afraid that any of the DLC that will be relased is going to be Xbox exclusive for a long time (much like Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas).
So then that leads me to wanting to get it on the Xbox, but in my opinion the graphics will be better on PS3, which will make gameplay more fun and immersive. Though to be honest, the graphics could probably be the same as Oblivion and it would still be incredibly immersive and fun.
So yeah....anyone else struggling to pick a console of choice for this game?
speedy485
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360 for me. I would disagree with the theory that the graphics will be better for the PS3. Historically, the majority of multi platform games have looked better on the 360 even if just slightly. And as you said, the DLC might be a determing factor.
Spartan Rex
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Big thanks to Todd Howard, Matt Carofano), and Bruce Nesmith for tackling the questions. Also want to thank Lady Neverar for helping grab questions from the community.
Without further ado...
Skyrim Fan Interview
Todd Howard, Game Director
Bruce Nesmith, Lead Designer
Matt Carofano, Lead Artist
1) Will the character be able to change into certain creature?
Todd: We’ve done various things like that in our previous games, and it’s something that we probably won’t be talking about specifically on this one. Don’t read anything into that, we just prefer to not discuss this one. We’d like to leave that an open question until the game is out.
2) What sorts of cosmetic options, like beards, tattoos, or body proportions, are available? Can we edit them later in the game?
Matt:
There is large amount of customization available for each race. You can choose from multiple hair styles, beards, scars, and face paint. Each race and gender has a light and heavy build and you can pick any level in between. We’ve completely redone our facial system, and we’re really excited to show off the results.
3) Is armor handled like in Oblivion (with each body part being welded together) or in Morrowind (with each body part separate)? Will you be able to wear both clothes and armor at the same time?
Matt: The armor system is very similar to Oblivion’s. The main difference is that the upper and lower body armors, the cuirass and greaves, have been combined into one piece. This helps create armor styles that have the look we needed for Skyrim. In most of the Nordic designs we created, the upper armor would completely cover the lower armor, making it unnecessary. We get much better visual results combining those pieces, and it renders a lot faster too, so we can put more people on screen, so that was an easy tradeoff for us. We can also make a lot more armors now, so the number and variation types are more than we’ve ever had.
4) Are the main and faction quests branching or linear? What about side quests?
Bruce: We’ve focused on telling one story well. There are decision points in all the quest lines that can change things, but overall it’s a single story. Because the side quests are smaller stories, they are more likely to have major branches. For example, you can decide to save or betray someone, which changes the whole end of the quest. Overall the quest structure in Skyrim is closer to Oblivion than Fallout 3, in that there are many more quests, but they have fewer branches.
5) Are loot and quest rewards level scaled, like in Oblivion? Will there be any powerful un-scaled items?
Bruce: We’re handling leveling stuff similar to how we did in Fallout 3, but with a few new twists that we hope players won’t even notice. The enemies and loot are based on the “encounter zone” you’re in, so it could be higher or lower level than your current level. We do have a new concept of epic or “special” loot that you can randomly find in many cases, regardless of the zone, and you will still get better stuff in the better zones with your level higher. Same goes for quest rewards. We try to make them appropriate for what you did. Sometimes that is random, sometimes that is a set item. There’s a lot of specific stuff that is very powerful, like the Daedric artifacts.
6) Will items present in Morrowind but not in Oblivion, such as spears, medium armor, and mark/recall spells, be making a return?
Todd: They are not in Skyrim for the same reasons we didn’t include them in Oblivion. I’ll address each one. First spears, the truth is we’d love to do them, but it becomes a priority and development time thing for us. We feel it’s better to spend our time right now making sure the gameplay for the other play styles is really solid. That includes sword, sword and shield, two-handed weapons, and bows. You can also add magic to that list. Getting those all working well together, while feeling different, is our priority.
As far as medium armor, that’s not a time or polish thing, it’s a design choice to focus on two armor types and making sure those feel different and the player appreciates them. We try to make your character move and feel different between light and heavy and having a 3rd one in the middle just muddies it up in how it plays, as well as visually. And even now, we still have to tweak those two armor types so they feel different, while remaining fun. Every time we slow down heavy armor more, it feels bad, but it’s the main way of balancing it. We’ve added other ways of balancing it that feel right—like different stamina drain rates when sprinting and such.
Mark and recall is one where it’s a lot of fun, but like levitation, was removed so we could design better gameplay spaces and scenarios. We were really limited in Morrowind because the player could recall or levitate out of many situations and break them. There was a lot of good gameplay and level design work that we just couldn’t do and now we can. Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say “oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.” So we got rid of them.
7) Will we be able to have relationships with the NPCs, romantic or otherwise?
Bruce: Absolutely! You make friends with people by doing things for them. Friends in the game will treat you differently. Some of them will even agree to go with you into dungeons and on adventures. You can even get married. If you own a house, your spouse will move in with you.
8) Are there any new armor/weapon materials unique to Skyrim?
Matt: One of the most prized and rarest sets of armor is made from dragons. It can be forged in both a light and heavy variant. You’ll see a return of many armors from previous games, such as leather and steel, however these have been redesigned in the Nordic style.
9) Can we have some specifics about the PC version of the game? How will it's UI be different? Will there be a 64-bit executable?
Todd: 64-bit specific exe? Not at this time. As far as UI, it visually looks the same across the platforms, but the controls are entirely different. There’s also a lot of “power user” stuff we do with the keyboard from how favorites work, to quick saves, and more that is similar to what we’ve done before in that area. We’re packing a lot of info on the screen and the whole interface is much less ‘look at giant fonts!’ than, say, Oblivion. The PC version also gets higher res textures, larger render modes, and a bunch of other effects you can scale up if your machine is a beast. Last but most important, is the Creation Kit we’ll be releasing for the PC. Modding the game and making it your own is very important to us and our fans, so we’re going to keep doing whatever we can in that area.
10) How will enchanting work in Skyrim? Will we have to constantly refill our enchantments with soul gems like we did in Oblivion, or will it be more like Morrowind in which the weapons recovered after a certain resting period?
Bruce: The method in Oblivion worked really well, so we kept it. Magic weapons use charges and have to be refilled with soul gems. Magic armor is always on and doesn’t need to be recharged. Soul gems and their lore and usage are a staple of the Elder Scrolls.
We have revamped the enchanting system though. Enchanting is now a skill. The better your skill and perks, the better you are at creating enchanted items. You’ll be able to find enchanting stations all over the world, which will make it much more accessible.
There are some changes from Oblivion, including the effects you can use when creating items, as well as how you learn effects. You now learn enchanting effects by “breaking down” a magic item you find, as opposed to them coming from spells you know. This allows us to separate enchanting from the other magical skills better.
11) What are the differences between the races? I guess they'll have different skill bonuses, but will they also start with different perks or have different "hard-coded" attributes, such as different running speeds or maximum encumbrance, etc.?
Todd: They each start with some skills that are higher by default, but those aren’t hard to overcome with another race in a short time. They also have different starting spells and each has its own passive abilities, like before, as well as powers, like before. So Khajiit can see in the dark, Orcs have a berserk power, Redguards have Adrenaline Rush, and so forth. They work differently in the new system, but the flavor is the same. We kept all the racial movement speeds the same, that’s now a factor of what you’re wearing and have equipped. And starting max encumbrance is the same and is based on your Stamina attribute.
12) Is there any game content (story, quests) that might be locked for a character based on race/faction/politics allegiances/morality/choices? Or one can experience all the content in one single play?
Todd: We do have some stuff that gets locked out based on decisions you make. It’s wherever it felt natural. It wasn’t a goal that you could or couldn’t play everything with one character. The game’s honestly so big that we don’t think about it much.
13) To what extent will our racial / gender selection at the start of the game will affecting our gameplay? Are there relationships affected by these choices?
Bruce: Your race is very important. It’s more than just how you look. Each race has a bias toward certain types of characters. If you want play a wizard, it will be easier with a High Elf or a Breton. If you want to play a warrior, it will be easier with a Nord or a Redguard. However, just like in Oblivion, we don’t force you to follow that bias. If you want to be a Nord wizard, that’s completely viable.
Gender does not change any initial skills or abilities. There is nothing that men do better than women or vice versa in the game. Other characters will recognize your gender and address you properly. Some may have prejudices for or against a particular gender as a part of their character, but it won’t change what you can or can’t do.
14) Do you plan to include non lethal ways of defeating opponents??
Todd: Depends on what you mean by “defeat”. We have various stealthy ways of getting past people, and the various poisons and spells allow you to basically render enemies harmless to you, whether that is casting a calm or fear spell, knocking them down, or something else.
Oh, and we now have tavern brawls that are non-lethal! I love those.
15) Will boss fights involve interesting mechanics involved as opposed to just more health and hits harder?
Todd: We have many new combat behaviors in our AI that makes fights with certain enemies very dynamic and interesting. It matters what the enemy can do. Dragons, for example, can do lot of things from multiple shouts, bombing runs, picking guys up, and more. An enemy that has a sword and shield, a bow, magic spells, and potions will use all of those things, and those fights are the most interesting. But we also design some combat encounters where the player simply may get mobbed by more simple enemies, and those have a different pace and strategy.
16) Do companions have skill and perk trees we can train?
Bruce: No, you only manage your own. Though companions often have certain perks so they behave different or better.
17) Is the culture in Skyrim strictly Nordic, or are there places (like Cheydinhal in Cyrodiil) that show influence from other cultures nearby, like architecture, religion, etc?
Matt: While there are pockets of other races in the game, we focused on the Nordic culture and their regional differences. The architecture between cities is dramatically different and reflects how the Nords live in that area.
18) So, the dragons are big and powerful. Did you include some destructible environment so they could leave marks and scars everywhere they attack? Can they demolish buildings, break trees, start avalanches, burn houses, things like this that emphasize their power?
Todd: They do leave marks and scars everywhere, but as far as destroying buildings and such, it’s rare. It does happen, but not a lot. Systemically destroying our spaces is something we have not found a good way to handle yet, because it’s so dynamic. We’re dealing with places that we have NPCs living, and providing quests and other game services. It’s something we avoid in every game unless we can specifically wipe it off the map, like Megaton.
19) Will there be any difference between the animation sets of male and female as well as human-like and 'beast' characters?
Matt: The animation system is completely new and dramatically improved. You will notice huge difference from previous games. There are differences between male and female animations, and even beast races have some specific animations.
20) Will any sort of karma system be incorporated like there was in Fallout, or will it be the Fame/Infamy system of Oblivion?
Bruce: We don’t provide a numeric score that you can track, but the game knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. We felt that a number really didn’t do your fame justice. Characters in the world will acknowledge the specific things you have done rather than just a generalized reputation. If you are a criminal, they’ll know that too. But if you pay your debt to society, all is forgiven.
21) Will crafting (weapons, armor) be effected by the tools you use as well as the ingredients used in the crafting? Such as the hammers and clippers, mastery level of the weapons and your level? Basically, will I be able to produce a more powerful, or even unique, weapon if I use a master hammer or clipper as opposed to novice?
Bruce: The blacksmith’s shop includes a forge, a grindstone, and a smithing bench. You can improve your weapons at the grindstone. The higher your skill, the more you can improve them, and the more damage they’ll do. Same thing for armor with the smithing bench, only the armor rating gets better. The forge is actually used to create new weapons and armor from raw materials.
22) Will your character have a voice? So that you can hear yourself having a conversation with other people?
Todd: You do have a voice, but you only hear it in grunts and shouts. So we have recorded for each race and sex you can play, all the different combat grunts, as well as the dragon language shouts.
23) Obviously every character is "Dragonborn", but not every character will be playing the same way. The question is: Will dragon shouts support all types of characters? Are there long ranged shouts? Some kind of stealthy "shout"?
Todd: Yes, the shouts support all character types. We’re not ready to talk about the other shouts yet, but soon enough.
24) Are there going to be places where you can use nature to your advantage? Like make a trap out of a falling tree or climb a tree to stealth attack an enemy?
Todd: Yes and no. You can’t make things, but our environment is so dense, you’re almost always using the natural terrain to get an advantage, especially with stealth.
25) Will you be able to carry on after the main story?
Todd: Yes, absolutely.
Without further ado...
Skyrim Fan Interview
Todd Howard, Game Director
Bruce Nesmith, Lead Designer
Matt Carofano, Lead Artist
1) Will the character be able to change into certain creature?
Todd: We’ve done various things like that in our previous games, and it’s something that we probably won’t be talking about specifically on this one. Don’t read anything into that, we just prefer to not discuss this one. We’d like to leave that an open question until the game is out.
2) What sorts of cosmetic options, like beards, tattoos, or body proportions, are available? Can we edit them later in the game?
Matt:
There is large amount of customization available for each race. You can choose from multiple hair styles, beards, scars, and face paint. Each race and gender has a light and heavy build and you can pick any level in between. We’ve completely redone our facial system, and we’re really excited to show off the results.
3) Is armor handled like in Oblivion (with each body part being welded together) or in Morrowind (with each body part separate)? Will you be able to wear both clothes and armor at the same time?
Matt: The armor system is very similar to Oblivion’s. The main difference is that the upper and lower body armors, the cuirass and greaves, have been combined into one piece. This helps create armor styles that have the look we needed for Skyrim. In most of the Nordic designs we created, the upper armor would completely cover the lower armor, making it unnecessary. We get much better visual results combining those pieces, and it renders a lot faster too, so we can put more people on screen, so that was an easy tradeoff for us. We can also make a lot more armors now, so the number and variation types are more than we’ve ever had.
4) Are the main and faction quests branching or linear? What about side quests?
Bruce: We’ve focused on telling one story well. There are decision points in all the quest lines that can change things, but overall it’s a single story. Because the side quests are smaller stories, they are more likely to have major branches. For example, you can decide to save or betray someone, which changes the whole end of the quest. Overall the quest structure in Skyrim is closer to Oblivion than Fallout 3, in that there are many more quests, but they have fewer branches.
5) Are loot and quest rewards level scaled, like in Oblivion? Will there be any powerful un-scaled items?
Bruce: We’re handling leveling stuff similar to how we did in Fallout 3, but with a few new twists that we hope players won’t even notice. The enemies and loot are based on the “encounter zone” you’re in, so it could be higher or lower level than your current level. We do have a new concept of epic or “special” loot that you can randomly find in many cases, regardless of the zone, and you will still get better stuff in the better zones with your level higher. Same goes for quest rewards. We try to make them appropriate for what you did. Sometimes that is random, sometimes that is a set item. There’s a lot of specific stuff that is very powerful, like the Daedric artifacts.
6) Will items present in Morrowind but not in Oblivion, such as spears, medium armor, and mark/recall spells, be making a return?
Todd: They are not in Skyrim for the same reasons we didn’t include them in Oblivion. I’ll address each one. First spears, the truth is we’d love to do them, but it becomes a priority and development time thing for us. We feel it’s better to spend our time right now making sure the gameplay for the other play styles is really solid. That includes sword, sword and shield, two-handed weapons, and bows. You can also add magic to that list. Getting those all working well together, while feeling different, is our priority.
As far as medium armor, that’s not a time or polish thing, it’s a design choice to focus on two armor types and making sure those feel different and the player appreciates them. We try to make your character move and feel different between light and heavy and having a 3rd one in the middle just muddies it up in how it plays, as well as visually. And even now, we still have to tweak those two armor types so they feel different, while remaining fun. Every time we slow down heavy armor more, it feels bad, but it’s the main way of balancing it. We’ve added other ways of balancing it that feel right—like different stamina drain rates when sprinting and such.
Mark and recall is one where it’s a lot of fun, but like levitation, was removed so we could design better gameplay spaces and scenarios. We were really limited in Morrowind because the player could recall or levitate out of many situations and break them. There was a lot of good gameplay and level design work that we just couldn’t do and now we can. Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say “oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.” So we got rid of them.
7) Will we be able to have relationships with the NPCs, romantic or otherwise?
Bruce: Absolutely! You make friends with people by doing things for them. Friends in the game will treat you differently. Some of them will even agree to go with you into dungeons and on adventures. You can even get married. If you own a house, your spouse will move in with you.
8) Are there any new armor/weapon materials unique to Skyrim?
Matt: One of the most prized and rarest sets of armor is made from dragons. It can be forged in both a light and heavy variant. You’ll see a return of many armors from previous games, such as leather and steel, however these have been redesigned in the Nordic style.
9) Can we have some specifics about the PC version of the game? How will it's UI be different? Will there be a 64-bit executable?
Todd: 64-bit specific exe? Not at this time. As far as UI, it visually looks the same across the platforms, but the controls are entirely different. There’s also a lot of “power user” stuff we do with the keyboard from how favorites work, to quick saves, and more that is similar to what we’ve done before in that area. We’re packing a lot of info on the screen and the whole interface is much less ‘look at giant fonts!’ than, say, Oblivion. The PC version also gets higher res textures, larger render modes, and a bunch of other effects you can scale up if your machine is a beast. Last but most important, is the Creation Kit we’ll be releasing for the PC. Modding the game and making it your own is very important to us and our fans, so we’re going to keep doing whatever we can in that area.
10) How will enchanting work in Skyrim? Will we have to constantly refill our enchantments with soul gems like we did in Oblivion, or will it be more like Morrowind in which the weapons recovered after a certain resting period?
Bruce: The method in Oblivion worked really well, so we kept it. Magic weapons use charges and have to be refilled with soul gems. Magic armor is always on and doesn’t need to be recharged. Soul gems and their lore and usage are a staple of the Elder Scrolls.
We have revamped the enchanting system though. Enchanting is now a skill. The better your skill and perks, the better you are at creating enchanted items. You’ll be able to find enchanting stations all over the world, which will make it much more accessible.
There are some changes from Oblivion, including the effects you can use when creating items, as well as how you learn effects. You now learn enchanting effects by “breaking down” a magic item you find, as opposed to them coming from spells you know. This allows us to separate enchanting from the other magical skills better.
11) What are the differences between the races? I guess they'll have different skill bonuses, but will they also start with different perks or have different "hard-coded" attributes, such as different running speeds or maximum encumbrance, etc.?
Todd: They each start with some skills that are higher by default, but those aren’t hard to overcome with another race in a short time. They also have different starting spells and each has its own passive abilities, like before, as well as powers, like before. So Khajiit can see in the dark, Orcs have a berserk power, Redguards have Adrenaline Rush, and so forth. They work differently in the new system, but the flavor is the same. We kept all the racial movement speeds the same, that’s now a factor of what you’re wearing and have equipped. And starting max encumbrance is the same and is based on your Stamina attribute.
12) Is there any game content (story, quests) that might be locked for a character based on race/faction/politics allegiances/morality/choices? Or one can experience all the content in one single play?
Todd: We do have some stuff that gets locked out based on decisions you make. It’s wherever it felt natural. It wasn’t a goal that you could or couldn’t play everything with one character. The game’s honestly so big that we don’t think about it much.
13) To what extent will our racial / gender selection at the start of the game will affecting our gameplay? Are there relationships affected by these choices?
Bruce: Your race is very important. It’s more than just how you look. Each race has a bias toward certain types of characters. If you want play a wizard, it will be easier with a High Elf or a Breton. If you want to play a warrior, it will be easier with a Nord or a Redguard. However, just like in Oblivion, we don’t force you to follow that bias. If you want to be a Nord wizard, that’s completely viable.
Gender does not change any initial skills or abilities. There is nothing that men do better than women or vice versa in the game. Other characters will recognize your gender and address you properly. Some may have prejudices for or against a particular gender as a part of their character, but it won’t change what you can or can’t do.
14) Do you plan to include non lethal ways of defeating opponents??
Todd: Depends on what you mean by “defeat”. We have various stealthy ways of getting past people, and the various poisons and spells allow you to basically render enemies harmless to you, whether that is casting a calm or fear spell, knocking them down, or something else.
Oh, and we now have tavern brawls that are non-lethal! I love those.
15) Will boss fights involve interesting mechanics involved as opposed to just more health and hits harder?
Todd: We have many new combat behaviors in our AI that makes fights with certain enemies very dynamic and interesting. It matters what the enemy can do. Dragons, for example, can do lot of things from multiple shouts, bombing runs, picking guys up, and more. An enemy that has a sword and shield, a bow, magic spells, and potions will use all of those things, and those fights are the most interesting. But we also design some combat encounters where the player simply may get mobbed by more simple enemies, and those have a different pace and strategy.
16) Do companions have skill and perk trees we can train?
Bruce: No, you only manage your own. Though companions often have certain perks so they behave different or better.
17) Is the culture in Skyrim strictly Nordic, or are there places (like Cheydinhal in Cyrodiil) that show influence from other cultures nearby, like architecture, religion, etc?
Matt: While there are pockets of other races in the game, we focused on the Nordic culture and their regional differences. The architecture between cities is dramatically different and reflects how the Nords live in that area.
18) So, the dragons are big and powerful. Did you include some destructible environment so they could leave marks and scars everywhere they attack? Can they demolish buildings, break trees, start avalanches, burn houses, things like this that emphasize their power?
Todd: They do leave marks and scars everywhere, but as far as destroying buildings and such, it’s rare. It does happen, but not a lot. Systemically destroying our spaces is something we have not found a good way to handle yet, because it’s so dynamic. We’re dealing with places that we have NPCs living, and providing quests and other game services. It’s something we avoid in every game unless we can specifically wipe it off the map, like Megaton.
19) Will there be any difference between the animation sets of male and female as well as human-like and 'beast' characters?
Matt: The animation system is completely new and dramatically improved. You will notice huge difference from previous games. There are differences between male and female animations, and even beast races have some specific animations.
20) Will any sort of karma system be incorporated like there was in Fallout, or will it be the Fame/Infamy system of Oblivion?
Bruce: We don’t provide a numeric score that you can track, but the game knows if you’ve been naughty or nice. We felt that a number really didn’t do your fame justice. Characters in the world will acknowledge the specific things you have done rather than just a generalized reputation. If you are a criminal, they’ll know that too. But if you pay your debt to society, all is forgiven.
21) Will crafting (weapons, armor) be effected by the tools you use as well as the ingredients used in the crafting? Such as the hammers and clippers, mastery level of the weapons and your level? Basically, will I be able to produce a more powerful, or even unique, weapon if I use a master hammer or clipper as opposed to novice?
Bruce: The blacksmith’s shop includes a forge, a grindstone, and a smithing bench. You can improve your weapons at the grindstone. The higher your skill, the more you can improve them, and the more damage they’ll do. Same thing for armor with the smithing bench, only the armor rating gets better. The forge is actually used to create new weapons and armor from raw materials.
22) Will your character have a voice? So that you can hear yourself having a conversation with other people?
Todd: You do have a voice, but you only hear it in grunts and shouts. So we have recorded for each race and sex you can play, all the different combat grunts, as well as the dragon language shouts.
23) Obviously every character is "Dragonborn", but not every character will be playing the same way. The question is: Will dragon shouts support all types of characters? Are there long ranged shouts? Some kind of stealthy "shout"?
Todd: Yes, the shouts support all character types. We’re not ready to talk about the other shouts yet, but soon enough.
24) Are there going to be places where you can use nature to your advantage? Like make a trap out of a falling tree or climb a tree to stealth attack an enemy?
Todd: Yes and no. You can’t make things, but our environment is so dense, you’re almost always using the natural terrain to get an advantage, especially with stealth.
25) Will you be able to carry on after the main story?
Todd: Yes, absolutely.
Spartan Rex
Super Freak
- Joined
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Theyre confirmed as in.
This game sounds so incredibly awesome!!! Can't wait till the day that I can finally play it!
The Rogster
Super Freak
quick question guys. This is probably my favorite series of games, and I was wondering, if I have both the xbox and the ps3, which platform should I purchase the game for?
NosferatuBill36
Super Freak
360.
Oblivion ran incredibly well on the 360, and I'd say it ran better on that platform than it did on the PS3.
Morrowind was also a PC/360 exclusive.
It will look nicer next to my 360 collection of Elder Scrolls games.
Oblivion ran incredibly well on the 360, and I'd say it ran better on that platform than it did on the PS3.
Morrowind was also a PC/360 exclusive.
It will look nicer next to my 360 collection of Elder Scrolls games.
360.
Oblivion ran incredibly well on the 360, and I'd say it ran better on that platform than it did on the PS3.
Morrowind was also a PC/360 exclusive.
It will look nicer next to my 360 collection of Elder Scrolls games.
Morrowind came out in 2002, man.
Nuka Cola Kidd
Super Freak
Yeah, he prolly meant xbox
NosferatuBill36
Super Freak
I did. My fanboy-ism of Xbox took control.
Regardless, I've always liked to have series constant with each other.
It's why I purchase all Street Fighter games for PS3(PS2, PSX), Star Wars games for Microsoft systems, etc.
blue_rogue
Super Freak
Thatnks for the recommendations! I'm going to Gamestop to pre-order the Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition tomorrow.
Karma
Jack's Smirking Revenge
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